Oath [BL; Book 2]

66

Aether played with Paimon at the beach, getting in some sun they tanned and played in the water. Yue was invited to join but their energy was far greater than his own. Taking a break under some shade, he fanned himself with the paper fan Paimon gifted him. Some drinks were left near the mist flower to keep cool.

Paimon made a castle keeping herself entertained while Aether sighed coming over with a drink offering it to Yue who accepted. "You have a lot of energy." He said as Aether sat under the tree too.

"Aha, you think so?" Aether smiled taking the compliment.

"Do you often test your limits? You've played in the water for some time."

"Haha, I-I guess?" He averted his eyes, "Thanks to Xiao's monstrous stamina I've been able to build mine up a little..."

"Perhaps I could join your training sessions."

"Well I don't really train," he found an excuse quickly and said, "with all the exploring I do I guess I've just gained it naturally."

"I see. Then I hope to excel in that field too."

"I'm sure you will. Ah, you found a job at the docks! That'll really help!"

"Yes, I agree."

"Good, let's change the subject. We took him to the harbor the other day to look for work aside from his vengeful assassination attempts. He manged to find something thanks to Ninguang." Aether grabbed the other fan fanning him, "I'll have to thank her another time." He noticed Yue was staring and smiled, "Are you excited for your job? It shouldn't be too hard right?"

"I've done work like that since I was young, my family lived by the water so our village was often receiving small shipments. I would help unload and load the boats, the only difference now is the size and quality of the orders." Yue responded, "It should be alright. Your friend was even kind enough to find housing for me, I must show her my thanks, if you have the time later today would you like to go with me?"

"Ah, maybe not today, Paimon and I were going to explore."

"Oh, I see. Very well," he sulked, "I suppose I can go myself, but would they allow me to see her?"

"Um.." Aether felt bad. "It's fine, we can go adventuring another time. Right Paimon?" He asked to be sure,

"Will there be snacks?" She called, and Yue laughed.

"Yes, there will definitely be snacks."

"Yaaay! Paimon wants to go!"

Aether sighed defeated by her hunger yet again, he was smiling as he said. "Ok, we'll go with you then. Paimon did say she wanted to watch you work."

"Really? Will she help me if I struggle?"

"Hahaha, maybe not."

They laughed.

After spending most of the morning there they began to clean up shoving everything in the curious bag Aether had. Paimon's ability to make it disappear was interesting too. They washed off the sand drying themselves. Facing away from each other as they changed Yue was too curious to let the opportunity slip by.

So he took a subtle peek as Aether stretched a bit. His slender figure, small body. His hair laying upon his skin like rivers. He was mesmerizing. The stare was too intense not to notice.

"He's staring at me...." Aether hid the shudder quickly putting his pants on then slipping into his top to hide his body though his skin still showed. Regardless he was more covered now than before and felt safer. "He's... still staring......" nervous now he quickly put the cape and scarf on along with his boots, gloves and armor. Looking back he smiled pretending not to have caught him, "Ready?"